Paint Crew Signups

Did any of you see that huge line that was wrapped around Mackey Arena Wednesday? Well, that line was the line to sign up for the Paint Crew. For those of you who do not know the Paint Crew is Purdue’s student section for the men’s basketball team. With the team having such high expectations this year and being ranked as high as fourth in some polls I knew the 1,800 Paint Crew spots would be hot commodities, but I still couldn’t believe my eyes when I arrived at 7:15 a.m. Wednesday morning. The ticket office opened at nine and I thought there would a few people in line, but boy was I wrong. We arrived almost two hours before opening and there was already about 110 people in front of us. With each person signing up about five other people, spots were filling up fast. Last year I was able to secure a spot in the Paint Crew on the third day of signups, but I quickly realized this year would be a different story. I was told that some people in line had camped out for Paint Crew spots and by the time that nine o’clock rolled around people were getting turned away because the officers realized there weren’t enough spots. Ridiculous. Anyway, the whole process took a very long time and I finally got through the line at 1:00 p.m. later that day. So to summarize, I got up at the crack-ass of dawn and waited in line for five hours for my Paint Crew spot, but you know what it is TOTALLY worth it. I loved being in the Paint Crew last year and with the team being so good this year, it’s going to be that much better. With great matchups at home such as Duke, Wisconsin, Ohio St., Michigan St., and IU, the basketball season is going to amazing and is something I have been looking forward to for quite some time. I can already tell the fan enthusiasm is going to be there and hopefully the basketball team can live up to all of this hype.